Scotland Yard have recently revealed that there have been 120 arrests made outside Buckingham and Kensington Palaces in the last five years alone. The Sun newspaper obtained the information under the Freedom of Information Act.

With an average of 24 incidents per year on the two key palace grounds, the police and security teams have their work cut out for them in order to make sure the royal family and the public are safe. Police presence has increased on the streets surrounding Buckingham Palace after an incident under two weeks ago.

Whilst most of the 120 arrests have gone unnoticed by the general public, as they were swiftly and quietly dealt with by the police, an attempted attack on 25th August attracted a lot of media attention. At 8.30pm a man reportedly drove at officers stationed outside of the palace on Constitution hill, he proceeded to pull out a four-foot sword and three police officers were injured.

This particular incident has been described as a terrorist incident and a 26 year old Luton man has since been charged. Further investigations have been launched after the attack. The head of the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command, Dean Haydon has praised the bravery and professionalism of the officers who were involved. None of the royal family were present at the palace at the time of the incident.

Of course, this is just one incident out of the 120 mentioned by Scotland Yard. There are no published records of all of the arrests made throughout the years, but it highly unlikely that many of them were serious threats to the royal family or the general public. The Metropolitan Police have said that releasing a full breakdown of why the arrests have been made would breach security measures and negatively affect law enforcement